Today, our women’s national team, which won five out of five matches at the Olympics and made the whole country fall in love with itself, will fight against Angola in the quarterfinals of the 2016 Olympics. A few days earlier, SE special correspondents met in Rio with the head of the Russian Handball Federation, who has been standing side by side with Yevgeny Trefilov’s team the whole time.
The head of the Russian Handball Federation knows how to raise the team’s spirits. The handball players enthusiastically welcomed the idea of going to the beach and to a fish restaurant the next day after Russia, after just three opening matches, secured a place in the playoffs. The girls were joyful for both reasons. Even though both they and the fans have lost tons of nerve cells.
NO ONE FORCED THE GIRLS TO SING THE ANTHEM, IT WAS THEIR OWN DECISION
“Yes, it wasn’t an easy win!” Shishkarev smiles, stirring thick coffee with a cinnamon stick. “At some point, we all reached for our heart medication or something stronger. We don’t allow ourselves that on the stands, although sometimes it probably wouldn’t hurt. You can describe those victories with so many words: exciting, nerve-wracking. We are now glad that we reached the quarterfinals ahead of schedule because failures in the first three matches could prevent us from getting into the playoffs. We’ve managed to overcome the South Korean barrier, which stood in front of us for a very long time. This is a reserved, unpredictable opponent. We have girls on the team who remember the unfortunate defeat in London. We had to take our revenge. This was an incredible match. We saw that our team could play differently tactically and that we had a fantastic atmosphere in the team. Thank God, we’ve managed to create a proper microclimate. Looking back at my experience in business, I can say that healthy relations in a team add confidence to everyone. I follow the same principles in handball.”
It seems that there is not a single odd player on the national team.
There is none. You can see for yourself that everyone plays, each girl contributes. And more importantly, the coach gives them room for error. And if someone fails to deliver, Trefilov makes the right substitutions to correct the situation. Even those you least expect to show something extraordinary do bend over backwards. In general, a machine operates properly only if all of its components are engaged. I mean that in a good way, of course.
Has anything bothered you these days?
In the match against France, we relaxed, lost concentration. But our girls still did a great job and won. From the point of view of psychology, this was an important win. Probably, they thought at first that it would be an easy match. From the point of view of statistics, France was not the toughest opponent. Just like Sweden, which we always beat easily. By the way, we can say that we helped the Sweden team get here. In Astrakhan, at the qualifying tournament, we exhausted the Polish team, which for some reason chose to fight us like it was their last time. And then, demoralized and exhausted, the Polish team had to fight against Sweden.
Is the first place in the group an unexpected success?
It is an intermediate success. The main success is that the girls got the fans to follow the handball. They feel the support of the country.
The way our girls sing the anthem, holding hands, immediately catches the eye. They look like real patriots.
They do not just look like patriots; they are real patriots. It is some sort of an oath that imposes additional responsibility on them. Singing the national anthem is not a miracle, it’s completely normal for any self-respecting nation. No one forced the girls to sign the anthem, it was their own decision. And I love their attitude. When I arrived in Brazil and gave them a short speech, everyone listened attentively, looked straight into the eyes. It’s like heaven and earth compared to when I first addressed them nine months ago. We have come a long way. Now my every word reaches the addressee.
IN SUCH HUMOROUS MANNER, MICROCLIMATE IS CREATED
Trefilov amazes everyone. Evgeny Vasilyevich is probably the most charismatic Russian coach now, in all sports.
He’s always like that. It’s just that now, thanks to a great amount effort, it has been possible to fit handball into Russian reality, and the people have rediscovered Trefilov for themselves. His emotions? He has every right to have them. He is so deeply in the game, he gets so excited that after a match is over, he simply does not hear anything around, he remains in his own world. I do not interfere in his work, but sometimes I ask him to mind the ethics. I like his good Kuban humor and aphorisms, but still, we are dealing with women, we must respect their dignity. Today, his yelling no longer frightens the girls. There is another moment: we have enough ill-wishers who would love to frame our coach. I would not name the sources, but I have information that certain media want to record his words during the match and give a word-by-word translation to show everyone what a tyrant works in Russia. Evgeny Vasilyevich understands all this and tries to control himself. But he does have best interest at heart. Once I asked him about some moment. He answered: ‘I don't remember anything. I was attacking with the girls at that moment!’
Which of Trefilov’s aphorisms do you especially remember?
Oh, there are so many! I’ve been most entertained by his million-dollar question: ‘How many boobs does a goat have, how many boobs does a cow have?’ Whoever can answer that question gains his respect. The thing is that he grew up in the small town of Ust-Labinsk. He was schooled to be hard-working: he milked cows, drove a tractor, he did learn many trades. I believe that the ideology of hard work made him what he is. In such a good-natured and humorous manner, the proper microclimate is created. He can both tease and support players, depending on what a specific player may need at the moment.
How do you communicate with each other?
I try to cover for him. It is a well-known fact that Trefilov has plenty of opponents. It took us a year to start trusting each other. I think that he expected some “catch” from me. As Lavrov calls it, we have “superior handball relations” in our sport. But I've always said to Trefilov: ‘Vasilyich, if I say something, I mean it. You can trust me!’ And it seems that now he believes me, knowing that I will not set him up and throw him under the bus. And when Trefilov understands that the president of the Federation is standing by his side, always ready to cover and fight for him, he becomes calm and confident. Now there are rumors that foreigners are preparing some discrediting film about Trefilov... I do not want to share the details yet.
Trefilov told us, a Swedish journalist once approached him and asked: ‘Do you beat your girls?’
That's exactly what I’m talking about. First of all, he would never hit anyone. Secondly, this is an absolutely unethical question. This is none of their business. We don’t ask them what is happening in their teams. We will stand for Trefilov! He knows and feels it.
How does Russian handball manage to maintain its high level. Should we thank oldies, like Trefilov, for that?
Not only the oldies. We have excellent schools in Volgograd, Krasnodar, Tolyatti, Zvenigorod, Astrakhan. A lot of attention is paid to the development of children’s handball in Rostov-on-Don. In Maykop, there are glorious traditions of women’s handball. Everything goes back to childhood. There are children who play handball. Handball schools are able to handpick the most talented ones. This is primarily relating to women’s handball. In men’s handball, the situation is worse, unfortunately. Women have some balance, healthy competition, there is a rivalry between schools and coaching techniques. This is much better than monopoly.
THE MAIN PROBLEMS ARE FUNDING AND ATTITUDE TO HANDBALL
Konstantin Igropulo with his blog #gandbollipuchy is currently one of the most active promoters of handball.
I met with Konstantin in person at the Final Four in Cologne. He’s a great guy. The videos are his personal initiative, he himself is a fan of handball. So, I proposed that we cooperate. He’s a handball zealot and does a great job in promoting handball, but he’s independent in all of that. It would be difficult to integrate him into our system because he is an active player. I can’t employ him at the Federation. And him not making it to the national team was the decision of the coaches, in whose work I have no right to interfere. I hope that Konstantin will recover from his injuries and has a chance to make it to the national team. We see his great potential for us, handball managers. He deserves our respect.
How come that Russia men’s team is not represented in men’s handball competitions? And what needs to be done to prevent this from happening again?
Speaking of the men’s team, missing the Olympics is an incident. Everything was decided in the last seconds of the unfortunate match against the Swedes at the European Championship when we were one point ahead of the opponent. We were expected to make it to the Olympics by all odds. But my namesake, Daniil Shishkarev, made a mistake and lost the ball, and then... I was afraid that your fellow journalists would write: ‘Shishkarev deprived Shishkarev of the Olympics.’ Of course, our relationship with Daniil did not become worse, rather the opposite. By the way, he recently had a son. By mentioning this episode, I just want to emphasize that we were one step away from qualifying for the Olympics.
At the same time, we must admit that the level of men’s handball in Russia is not as high as women’s. It would be enough to just compare the performance of our glorious HBC Chekhovskiye Medvedi with that of any of our women’s teams, let’s say Rostov-Don, which passed the group stage without defeats and in the quarterfinals lost only to the future winner of the Champions League, both times losing by two points only. We cannot boast about similar achievements in men’s handball.
Speaking about the reasons, we somehow come back to the system, since professional clubs are just the tip of the iceberg. There is no proper selection process; there is no clear sports hierarchy, when children’s and youth sports schools delegate their best representatives to the top, there are no children’s and youth competitions, there are not enough strong teams in the regions for boys and girls to follow and join the sport. The main problems are funding and attitude to handball as such.
We set three tasks for ourselves. The first one is to bring handball back to the elite of Russian sports. The second one is to organize a systematic educational and training process, including the training of coaching staff in the regions. And the third one is funding. One of its components is the government support. We all understand that children’s and youth handball cannot be funded through private sponsorship. The other component is marketing, creating a handball media product, which will arouse interest among sponsors, patrons and advertisers.
And we’re getting there. We’ve been earning back the former popularity. Naturally, Olympics play a great role. You can work hard for ten years, but it’s the Olympics that boost the interest and make a sport more popular. As for funding, sometimes even the few funds allocated by the local governments are spent uncontrollably by distributing the bits among many spenders.
REACHING THE QUARTERFINALS WITH PEACE OF MIND
After Russia beat Argentina and the Netherlands in seemingly meaningless matches, we contacted Shishkarev again to ask a few more questions.
“For us, at this stage of the Olympics, everything worked out in the best way: five wins in five matches,” said Sergey Nikolayevich. “In terms of fighting spirit and entertainment, we did everything we could to draw attention to our team. Most importantly, the girls showed that they have a backbone. The match against the Netherlands was interesting in terms of strengthening the team spirit and tournament motivation, given that, being in the first place, we already made it to the quarterfinals. It was great that the girls primed for victory and played so confidently, with a margin of safety, showing beautiful combinations. I would like to note that the score was also great. They broke their own record again. Before that they scored 32, 34, 36 goals, and in the match against the Netherlands, the team scored 38. I liked how Vyakhireva and Ilyina played. Goalkeeper Victoria Kalinina is gaining momentum. It was obvious that they enjoyed the match and were the main performers.”
Are you very nervous, as the playoffs are coming?
There is always excitement. Both before and after the game. I don’t want to sound too self-confident, but the match against the Netherlands gave us confidence. I’m at peace right now.
Are you going to somehow motivate the team before the playoffs?
We have already talked with the team before the start of the Olympics. The girls know what they are playing for, we have announced the bonuses. Although they themselves say that this is not the main thing for them, the honor of the country, the pride of the Russian flag, and successful performance at the Games are much more important. An you know, one shouldn’t go too far with emotional conversations either, I don’t think that sentimental conversations are much needed now. Maybe after the quarterfinals. God willing, everything will turn out well for us, and we will talk to the team. Now I’m thinking more about how to give the players more positive emotions, because the Olympics is a long tournament. If we take into account the training camps, the girls have been away from their loved and close ones, in another country, a different time zone, for several weeks.
Source: Dmitry Zelenov, Dmitry Simonov, Sport-Express